Published Release Notes

Improving basic access control

Pega Platform™ has implemented a new basic access control (BAC) to protect your application from unauthorized server calls from otherwise authenticated users.

For more information, see Access Control Checks.

Upgrade impact

After you upgrade to Pega 8.5, all the functionality in the model configurations that use auto-generated controls and actions continues to work as before. However, you must secure any customized JavaScript in your application layer that makes AJAX (server) calls  by using registration or encryption mechanisms.

What steps are required to update the application to be compatible with this change?

After upgrade, to migrate custom JavaScript functionality, see Access Control Checks.

New access control policy for encrypting properties

With attribute-based attribute control, you can now encrypt property values in the database, clipboard, logs, and search indexes for any property type. If no policy obfuscates an encrypted property, its value is visible in UI controls and reports.

For more information, see Creating an access control policy.

Accessibility improvements

Several improvements are now available that enable application accessibility. These improvements affect the wait indicator, overlays, and collapsible layouts.

The wait indicator, or throbber, announces its status to an assistive technology such as JAWS.

• When loading, the throbber announces “Loading content” or other text that can be edited in the pyThrobberLoadingText property.
• When loading is completed, the throbber announces “Loading completed” or other text that can be edited in the pyThrobberLoadingCompletedText property.
• The loading announcement is set by default to a three-second delay, which can be modified in the pyThrobberAnnouncementDelay property.

Overlays are announced by an assistive technology and overlay content can be tabbed through by using the Tab key without closing the overlay. Overlays can be closed by pressing the Esc key. This behavior applies to all overlays and modal dialog boxes that are opened as local actions and popovers that are part of the autogenerated UI.

All users, including those not using an assistive technology, can focus the expand and collapse feature of a layout by using the Tab key. The expanded or collapsed state is announced by screen readers.

New JWT access token format: Authorized Access Token

Pega Platform™ is changing from using opaque tokens to using JSON Web (JWT) tokens and the JWT access token format: Authorized Access Token (AAT). An AAT enables a client application to validate the server for user permissions and authorizes a specific application to access specific parts of a user’s data.

The major benefits to using the JWT format are:

• The JWT is a self-contained token that has authentication information, expire time information, and other user-defined claims digitally signed.
• A single token can be used with multiple applications.
• The tokens are short-lived and can minimize damage if transport security is compromised, as the token signature is verified.
• As the token is verified with the signature, there is no need to verify against a database, thus reducing latency (usually important for Web APIs).

For more information, see Understanding authorized access tokens.

Access views in one location

You can access the relevant views for your case type in one place. By using the Views tab in Case Designer, you can review and edit views that are used in your case life cycle. You can also configure standard views to quickly customize the fields that are displayed when a user creates, edits, or reviews a case.

For more information, see Views in a case type.

Access views in one location

You can access the relevant views for your case type in one place. By using the Viewstab in Case Designer, you can review and edit views that are used in your case life cycle. You can also configure standard views to quickly customize the fields that are displayed when a user creates, edits, or reviews a case.

For more information, see Views in a case type.

Control group configuration for predictions

You can now configure a control group for your predictions in Prediction Studio. Based on the control group, Prediction Studio calculates a lift score for each prediction that you can later use to monitor the success rate of your predictions.

For more information, see Customizing predictions.

New privilege required to access the Search landing page

After upgrading to Pega^® Platform 7.4, users who do not have the pxAccessSearchLP privilege cannot access the Search landing page. The pxAccessSearchLP privilege is automatically assigned to the SysAdm4 role. If you have other roles that require access to the Search landing page, you must add the pxAccessSearchLP privilege to those roles.

For more information about assigning privileges to roles, see User privilege authorization. (Link to: basics/v6portal/landingpages/accessmanager/customizeprivilegestab.htm)

Date control for past and future years

The Date control can be configured to show only past dates, only future dates, or any date range that includes the current year. The Display range can be set to include a configurable range of previous years or next years. The number of years is relative to the user’s date.

Data Visualization controls are now available

Use a Data Visualization control when you need a highly configurable visualization beyond the standard pie, bar, and line charts. With a Data Visualization control, you can appropriately represent any type of data. You can add Data Visualization controls to sections or anywhere else a standard control can be used, such as dashboard widgets.

For more information, see Adding and configuring a Data Visualization control.